Government to send notices to several NGO’s soon!

Based on the Investigation Bureau report on the suspicious activities of NGOs particularly mentioning Greenpeace, the central government is getting ready to serve notices on more than 10 NGOs under Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act of 2010. The government will ask them why permission to accept foreign funding by them be withdrawn.

Greenpeace was already sent several questions two months ago by the IB. Greenpeace has been particularly scanned as the agency has been receiving significant funding and after the agency’s active part in the protests against Kudankulam anti-nuclear protests, more questions with regard to it’s allegiance and actions have been raised.

“The manner of free-funding for these NGOs is observed from the fact that ASHA and its IFSF campaign are headquartered with four prominent anti-nuclear NGOs at a single address — A-124/6, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi — which is an unmarked, small, two-room flat,” the report stated.

Among the other NGOs to be questioned, about six – ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture) and IFSF (India For Safe Food) have been identified in the IB report as among the four NGOs — the other two being Navdanya and Gene Campaign — which have been leading anti-GM food activism in India.

“The above NGOs were active facilitators of news articles, liaison with other activists and social media activism which contributed to the four-year old moratorium on Bt Brinjal and the ban regimes recommended by parliamentary standing committee (August 2012), Technical Expert Committee appointed by the Supreme Court in October 2012,” the IB said.

These NGOs active mostly in the North East have been greatly in touch with Dutch NGO Cordaid, which has been accused on inappropriate actions earlier and the Home Ministry cancelled funds from the organization.

Among the 43,527 NGOs registered under FCRA, 20,825 have not filed any annual returns to the government explaining received funds and their expenditure. Stricter monitoring is definitely needed in the sector, explained Home Ministry officials.